Coelacanth:Fark sending a probe. Send people. We're a race of seafarers. At least put a manned ship in orbit so we can teleoperate the thing.

Great idea, but it is not technically possible to send people to Saturn at the moment. Mars is only 0.5 AU from the Earth at closest approach and we can't even send people there. Saturn is 9 AU away at closest approach. If you want results in the next, say decade, you are going to have to send a probe.

KarmicDisaster:Coelacanth: Fark sending a probe. Send people. We're a race of seafarers. At least put a manned ship in orbit so we can teleoperate the thing.

Great idea, but it is not technically possible to send people to Saturn at the moment. Mars is only 0.5 AU from the Earth at closest approach and we can't even send people there. Saturn is 9 AU away at closest approach. If you want results in the next, say decade, you are going to have to send a probe.

I know. I just wish we'd stop buying military crap we don't need or want, and give NASA a real budget again.

Coelacanth:Fark sending a probe. Send people. We're a race of seafarers. At least put a manned ship in orbit so we can teleoperate the thing.

The problem with sending people is quite simple: to send a crew to Saturn to explore one of it's moons, you'd need a vessel capable of holding the entire crew. And it's not like we can just build a metal tube that is equal to the volume of five people and stuff five people into it. We'd need room for everyone to move around in, sleep, eat, crap and pilot the ship. Next the ship would have to leave with everything needed. All food, water, supplies, back up supplies in case of needed repairs, oxygen, fuel and anything else I'm missing. You'll also need entertainment since it's going to take years to get from Earth to Saturn, and a deck of cards just isn't going to cut it. Think about what we bring with us for a plane ride from the U.S. to Europe. And the problems get amplified when you have to bring everyone back. And if your crew is co-ed, you'll need enough room to any pregnancies that pop up. After all, men and women into space together for years, there is no way that crew is going to abstain.

It's easier to send robots at the moment. Don't get me wrong, I love Star Trek and I would love to see the day when we send people to Mars or the moon to establish off world cities. As the population here on Earth grows and grows and grows, colonization of the moon, Mars, the larger asteroids, the moons of Mars is going to be a reality. But for right now, sending a crew to a moon like Titan is stupid because a robot can do the same job, cheaper to send out and Titan is not a place humans can survive so what is the need to do so? I know the moon isn't livable either, but it's also a hell of a lot closer and sending people to the moon proved that we could in fact do it and the next step is to colonize the moon.

Great Janitor:The problem with sending people is quite simple: to send a crew to Saturn to explore one of it's moons, you'd need a vessel capable of holding the entire crew. And it's not like we can just build a metal tube that is equal to the volume of five people and stuff five people into it. We'd need room for everyone to move around in, sleep, eat, crap and pilot the ship. Next the ship would have to leave with everything needed. All food, water, supplies, back up supplies in case of needed repairs, oxygen, fuel and anything else I'm missing. You'll also need entertainment since it's going to take years to get from Earth to Saturn, and a deck of cards just isn't going to cut it. Think about what we bring with us for a plane ride from the U.S. to Europe. And the problems get amplified when you have to bring everyone back. And if your crew is co-ed, you'll need enough room to any pregnancies that pop up. After all, men and women into space together for years, there is no way that crew is going to abstain.

It's easier to send robots at the moment. Don't get me wrong, I love Star Trek and I would love to see the day when we send people to Mars or the moon to establish off world cities. As the population here on Earth grows and grows and grows, colonization of the moon, Mars, the larger asteroids, the moons of Mars is going to be a reality. But for right now, sending a crew to a moon like Titan is stupid because a robot can do the same job, cheaper to send out and Titan is not a place humans can survive so what is the need to do so? I know the moon isn't livable either, but it's also a hell of a lot closer and sending people to the moon proved that we could in fact do it and the next step is to colonize the moon.

I'm well aware of the difficulties. After all, I'm the guy who suggested the Cloud 9 design for spacecraft (surround your spacecraft with an utility nebula of plasma window generating nanobots to protect the crew against radiation and meteor impacts, as well as keeping in an atmosphere and allowing the crew to live in a comfortable shirtsleeve environment with almost all the room they could want).

Our current problem is that most people cannot get emotionally involved in the adventures of a robot that looks like a stripped BMW. That's why these programs lose funding. They can't connect. The only solution I can see is to build humanoid probes, or at least probes with some anthropomorphic feature (WALL·E being a good example).

Coelacanth:I'm well aware of the difficulties. After all, I'm the guy who suggested the Cloud 9 design for spacecraft (surround your spacecraft with an utility nebula of plasma window generating nanobots to protect the crew against radiation and meteor impacts, as well as keeping in an atmosphere and allowing the crew to live in a comfortable shirtsleeve environment with almost all the room they could want).

Ooohhh you're the guy who suggested that? Brilliant man! Why did no one else think of that first?? You gotta be some kind of genius.

Grither:Coelacanth: I'm well aware of the difficulties. After all, I'm the guy who suggested the Cloud 9 design for spacecraft (surround your spacecraft with an utility nebula of plasma window generating nanobots to protect the crew against radiation and meteor impacts, as well as keeping in an atmosphere and allowing the crew to live in a comfortable shirtsleeve environment with almost all the room they could want).

Ooohhh you're the guy who suggested that? Brilliant man! Why did no one else think of that first?? You gotta be some kind of genius.

Coelacanth:I'm well aware of the difficulties. After all, I'm the guy who suggested the Cloud 9 design for spacecraft (surround your spacecraft with an utility nebula of plasma window generating nanobots to protect the crew against radiation and meteor impacts, aswell as keeping in an atmosphere and allowing the crew to live in a comfortable shirtsleeve environment with almost all the room they could want).

Coelacanth:Great Janitor: The problem with sending people is quite simple: to send a crew to Saturn to explore one of it's moons, you'd need a vessel capable of holding the entire crew. And it's not like we can just build a metal tube that is equal to the volume of five people and stuff five people into it. We'd need room for everyone to move around in, sleep, eat, crap and pilot the ship. Next the ship would have to leave with everything needed. All food, water, supplies, back up supplies in case of needed repairs, oxygen, fuel and anything else I'm missing. You'll also need entertainment since it's going to take years to get from Earth to Saturn, and a deck of cards just isn't going to cut it. Think about what we bring with us for a plane ride from the U.S. to Europe. And the problems get amplified when you have to bring everyone back. And if your crew is co-ed, you'll need enough room to any pregnancies that pop up. After all, men and women into space together for years, there is no way that crew is going to abstain.

It's easier to send robots at the moment. Don't get me wrong, I love Star Trek and I would love to see the day when we send people to Mars or the moon to establish off world cities. As the population here on Earth grows and grows and grows, colonization of the moon, Mars, the larger asteroids, the moons of Mars is going to be a reality. But for right now, sending a crew to a moon like Titan is stupid because a robot can do the same job, cheaper to send out and Titan is not a place humans can survive so what is the need to do so? I know the moon isn't livable either, but it's also a hell of a lot closer and sending people to the moon proved that we could in fact do it and the next step is to colonize the moon.

I'm well aware of the difficulties. After all, I'm the guy who suggested the Cloud 9 design for spacecraft (surround your spacecraft with an utility nebula of plasma window generating nanobots to protect the crew against radiation and meteor impacts, as ...

The idea of the utility nebula is interesting, but currently as possible as installing a transporter device, warp engines and a replicator on the next generation space shuttle.

As far as human looking probes go, that's a dumb idea. Not the idea of making a probe that would capture the interest and imagination in space exploration by having a cool looking space probe, but the idea of a humanoid space probe. The human body isn't made to operate in space. A human space probe orbiting a moon or planet is dumb because the legs would be pointless. And for planetary exploration, why use legs when a tank tread design is cheaper and easier to build and pretty much does the same job?

To capture the interest and imagination in space exploration, we first need to invest in our schools from grades K-junior high in the science programs. This is a major hit that schools took when the focus shifted from actual education to standardized tests. We also need to look at what is on television. We'd get more interest in space if we had shows about it. We aren't going to get the population behind space exploration if we're concerned about which American has talent or how to keep up with the Kardashians. Sci-fi space shows would do quite a bit to help generate interest in space.

But, the biggest two things that would boom space interest: 1) finding an Earth like planet. That alone would do more for the space program since the Apollo 11 mission. 2) Corporate Interest in space. I know many people hate the idea of privatizing space, but honestly, I don't see a problem with it. I was watching an episode of The Universe over the weekend and they made the mention that a half mile long asteroid could contain several billion dollars worth of raw materials. That's really just floating money orbiting the sun between Mars and Jupiter. NASA isn't going to invest the money into harvesting those materials. But, it makes perfect since for a corporation to build a $200 million robot,launch it into space, have it latch onto an asteroid and move it to Earth were it could then be controlled crashed into Earth (use the robot to push the asteroid to Earth, then, have it use the rocket system as a form of retro rocket to slow down the asteroid to a pre-determined landing area to be mined on site), mine the asteroid and then sell the minerals for over a billion dollars.

Great Janitor:The idea of the utility nebula is interesting, but currently as possible as installing a transporter device, warp engines and a replicator on the next generation space shuttle.

I'm aware of that. The reason I mentioned it was to assert that

But, the biggest two things that would boom space interest: 1) finding an Earth like planet. That alone would do more for the space program since the Apollo 11 mission. 2) Corporate Interest in space. I know many people hate the idea of privatizing space, but honestly, I don't see a problem with it. I was watching an episode of The Universe over the weekend and they made the mention that a half mile long asteroid could contain several billion dollars worth of raw materials. That's really just floating money orbiting the sun between Mars and Jupiter. NASA isn't going to invest the money into harvesting those materials. But, it makes perfect since for a corporation to build a $200 million robot,launch it into space, have it latch onto an asteroid and move it to Earth were it could then be controlled crashed into Earth (use the robot to push the asteroid to Earth, then, have it use the rocket system as a form of retro rocket to slow down the asteroid to a pre-determined landing area to be mined on site), mine the asteroid and then sell the minerals for over a billion dollars.

Dude, I was born the same month Sputnik went into orbit. I was awake the whole time they landed a man on the moon for the first time. One of my best friends was a JPL engineer who lost his job due to cutbacks and committed suicide because he realized the futility of his dreams. I stood with a placard outside my congressman's office begging him to help save Skylab. I had to be sent home from work because I couldn't stop weeping over the loss of Challenger.

I know all the schemes and all the dreams by heart. The only thing I know for sure is if we don't start doing big things TOMORROW, the universe will go on without us, and we will never be missed.

What is the density of liquid methane on the the surface of Titan? I don't know why, but I have the feeling that it is going to be a lot less that water. It would be right shiatty to drop a boat in the sea there and watch go down quicker that a vicar at a boy scout jamboree.

The whole, lets put wives and children in harms way concept was retarded.

I didn't have a problem with the idea. Except they gave up on it by the end of the first season and ended up constantly carrying the saucer into combat. Too expensive to film I guess.

The families on board made sense. The Galaxy class ships were designed to go out for years at a time before needing to return to the starbase for repairs, resupplies, routine maintenance, etc... so of course it makes sense to allow the crew members to have their families on the ship. Voyager, for example, didn't leave DS9 with families because it was explained in the second season that Voyager was a short range ship that wasn't intended for long trips (though it was throw away dialogue between Tom and Harry) in the beginning of an episode. Clearly it wasn't common to have families on ships since the Enterprise E did not have families on board.

What did not make sense to me were some of the smaller ships that had families, like the Vico (Hero Worship) and the ship Sisko was first officer on in the pilot of Deep Space Nine (It was the same class of ship as the Reliant). What also, to me, makes so sense is, episodes like 'Best of Both Worlds', they are heading to battle against the Borg, they are heading to Earth. Yes, you want to keep the saucer section on your ship because those two phaser arrays on the saucer section are nice to have in battle. But, why didn't Riker say "Okay, we may die in this battle, Troi get all families and non-essential personnel to pack a small bag, Wesley set course for the nearest base to drop off families and non-essential personnel. We have enough transporters that we should be able to beam everyone from ship to base in about 10 minutes."

Though, here is one problem with the families and scientists on the ship. Imagine you're either a 12 y.o. boy in the ship's school or you're a botanist working in the same lab as Keiko (O'Brien's future wife). It's during the events of 'Where Silence Has Lease' and Picard and Riker have just set the auto destruct for 20 minutes. Here you are, in school, 12 years old, and the red alert lights are flashing and counting down to your death and until that point in time, you were thinking "Man, can't wait until lunch.", now it's "I hope that counter never hits zero." And, as the botanist, your biggest problem was "Damn, that Keiko is a biatch!" Now you're watching a count down wondering "Is it better to get near one of the explosives and die instantly, or get as far away as possible from the bombs in a futile attempt to live just a little bit longer?"

devine:What is the density of liquid methane on the the surface of Titan? I don't know why, but I have the feeling that it is going to be a lot less that water. It would be right shiatty to drop a boat in the sea there and watch go down quicker that a vicar at a boy scout jamboree.

0.422 g/cm^3, or less than half that of water. Still not a big deal- consider how big a ship you can float on very little water. The Nimitz class carriers draft a shade over 11 meters fully loaded

What I wonder about is heat shielding. The only possible power source for a long lived probe is a RTG, and they have to run hot to work at all. Even if you put a ton of shielding around it and try to radiate the heat away up, it's still going to be the equivalent of a white hot object on a methane sea.

I suspect this is why the proposed probe has no propulsion- anything we could build would just end up boiling methane rather than making the probe go anywhere.

Great Janitor:Coelacanth: Great Janitor: The problem with sending people is quite simple: to send a crew to Saturn to explore one of it's moons, you'd need a vessel capable of holding the entire crew. And it's not like we can just build a metal tube that is equal to the volume of five people and stuff five people into it. We'd need room for everyone to move around in, sleep, eat, crap and pilot the ship. Next the ship would have to leave with everything needed. All food, water, supplies, back up supplies in case of needed repairs, oxygen, fuel and anything else I'm missing. You'll also need entertainment since it's going to take years to get from Earth to Saturn, and a deck of cards just isn't going to cut it. Think about what we bring with us for a plane ride from the U.S. to Europe. And the problems get amplified when you have to bring everyone back. And if your crew is co-ed, you'll need enough room to any pregnancies that pop up. After all, men and women into space together for years, there is no way that crew is going to abstain.

It's easier to send robots at the moment. Don't get me wrong, I love Star Trek and I would love to see the day when we send people to Mars or the moon to establish off world cities. As the population here on Earth grows and grows and grows, colonization of the moon, Mars, the larger asteroids, the moons of Mars is going to be a reality. But for right now, sending a crew to a moon like Titan is stupid because a robot can do the same job, cheaper to send out and Titan is not a place humans can survive so what is the need to do so? I know the moon isn't livable either, but it's also a hell of a lot closer and sending people to the moon proved that we could in fact do it and the next step is to colonize the moon.

I'm well aware of the difficulties. After all, I'm the guy who suggested the Cloud 9 design for spacecraft (surround your spacecraft with an utility nebula of plasma window generating nanobots to protect the crew against radiation and meteor impacts, as ...

The idea of the utility nebula is interesting, but currently as possible as installing a transporter device, warp engines and a replicator on the next generation space shuttle.

As far as human looking probes go, that's a dumb idea. Not the idea of making a probe that would capture the interest and imagination in space exploration by having a cool looking space probe, but the idea of a humanoid space probe. The human body isn't made to operate in space. A human space probe orbiting a moon or planet is dumb because the legs would be pointless. And for planetary exploration, why use legs when a tank tread design is cheaper and easier to build and pretty much does the same job?

To capture the interest and imagination in space exploration, we first need to invest in our schools from grades K-junior high in the science programs. This is a major hit that schools took when the focus shifted from actual education to standardized tests. We also need to look at what is on television. We'd get more interest in space if we had shows about it. We aren't going to get the population behind space exploration if we're concerned about which American has talent or how to keep up with the Kardashians. Sci-fi space shows would do quite a bit to help generate interest in space.

But, the biggest two things that would boom space interest: 1) finding an Earth like planet. That alone would do more for the space program since the Apollo 11 mission. 2) Corporate Interest in space. I know many people hate the idea of privatizing space, but honestly, I don't see a problem with it. I was watching an episode of The Universe over the weekend and they made the mention that a half mile long asteroid could contain several billion dollars worth of raw materials. That's really just floating money orbiting the sun between Mars and Jupiter. NASA isn't going to invest the money into harvesting those materials. But, it makes perfect since for a corporation to build a $200 million robot,launch it into space, have it latch onto an asteroid and move it to Earth were it could then be controlled crashed into Earth (use the robot to push the asteroid to Earth, then, have it use the rocket system as a form of retro rocket to slow down the asteroid to a pre-determined landing area to be mined on site), mine the asteroid and then sell the minerals for over a billion dollars.

Over one hundred thousand asteroids large enough to supply the entire world with a years supply of metal, according to Jerry Pournelle. Worth a shot.